Yes, I totally agree with you... why buy from the US if you can get the same stuff cheaper made in China/India.
I am not saying Made in China/India in itself is cheap quality. I am saying because they are made in China/India, they will be priced cheap due to cheap labor. And a "cheap" item is not something that will be used in fine jewelry which means lab created diamonds will end up being used for cheap jewelry. These stones could be created in a US or France factory, and if technology & labor allow them to be created at $9.99 per carat, no one will consider it "fine jewelry". India is now a huge gem cutting center, out leading Antwerp who was once the leader. But again, "diamond" purchases are emotional, and paying say $9.99 per carat for a perfectly cut and polished factory created diamond that you can order up anytime has no emotional allure.
I also think once China/India open up lab grown diamond factories, the US factories will not be able to compete in price. It's just math... the cost to create the diamond is the same (it's from a machine), the differentiator is the labor, and hands down, China/India have much cheaper labor. People will buy China/India lab-grown diamonds which kills the price and perception of value. It becomes like moissanite. Colvard once had the market on moissanite and managed the price and perception. Then it went to China, and now you can get moissanite from China for about $50 / carat. And I agree with what you said... if China can cut/polish with the same quality, why buy US higher prices, which then prices will continue to drop.
The lab created stones come out looking like a rough diamond, an ugly rock. They do not come out all nice and polished.
Creating the stone is the easy part once you have the machine. Now this rough stone needs to be cut, faceted, polished... all by human hands. Yes, there is the help of machines such as lasers, but it is people that use these machines to make it a finished product, all nice and sparkly. That's how the Asian countries make it cheaper as their labor is far cheaper than the US and many European countries. Which is why this industry is worried when the Asians start, they will for sure take over and kill the market due to a flood and much lower prices. And speaking of labor, natural diamonds are cut and polished in Asia (mostly India) these days now.
My personal opinion is that once the Asians see demand, they will crank out these stones and create jewelry from it and sell it cheap to chain stores. It will be like cubic zirconia jewelry, available everywhere, but not viewed as fine jewelry.
The key though whether Asia is interested in doing this at a mass level will be demand. The Asians are very business minded, and if there is no demand and this marketing hype dies down, they will not pursue. It's like the lab created emerald back in the 30s. Many in the trade were initally worried it would kill the natural emerald market, but it did not. Yes, you can still purchase lab created emeralds, but demand is almost nothing for them, and you see it in mostly low end jewelry. On the contrary, the demand for natural emeralds, especially Colombian has skyrocketed. Or maybe they will still do it... like Moissanite... China makes moissanite, and there's still a tiny demand for it (after all the hype when it first came out).
So, we'll have to see how this plays out.
I feel there is some fundamental misunderstanding about production in China and why some products can be made cheaper there. It’s far more complicated than “cheap labour”.
For starters, China, and other Asian country’s abilities to build and house the machinery needed will never be beaten because of sheer land mass.
There are also factors surrounding the building of machines, their abilities to do so, and surrounding patents.
Yes it’s definitely true that the designer branding does add a lot of value to the jewellery piece.
My point was more around someone earlier mentioned how a lab diamond is made of the same properties as a natural diamond - hence my comparison to a fake replica bag made of the same materials.
A natural diamond is a lot rarer than a lab produced diamond and a lot goes into the mining process, so at the end of the day it is worth a lot more than a lab one. As someone else on this forum said, a lab one will be as common as a cubic zirconia as the technology gets better and more are produced.
Each to their own as you say, everyone has their own preferences.
If a bag was made with the same materials, then shouldn’t the common sense answer to “would you buy the non branded one” be a very easy yes?
Why would you pay more than the materials and labour cost just because the brand wack their name on it? It’s not fake anything. It will perform the same function and last the same length of time. It’s not a fake bag.
Not only that, but I’ve seen far cheaper bags using the same materials which are gathered far more ethically than some well know brand names. The consumer is being doubled duped in those cases.
I think the term “luxury” needs a massive overhaul. At one point it meant a certain something. A sole, skilled artisan hand stitching a carefully cultured material they humanely obtained perhaps. And only a limited number of people could partake in that experience because of real factors that reflect decent humanity. Hence the rarity and value.
Nowadays those methods cannot keep up with demand, and luxury is artificially created by inflating value based on factors that brand decides. So should we covet that? And try and prolong the idolisation of those factors?
A very important factor of the experience to consider is that the final purchaser of these items is the only person in that chain to experience the benefit of the luxury. So it’s a huge poor/rich divider.
I would 100% partake in purchasing from historic brands, that then allows you to enjoy the story and prestige from their creation and development in the past. But once a company starts to cut corners for their shareholders, and support unethical business and enable suffering, the magic is lost.
Nowadays, there is more conflict, more animal cruelty, more rule breaking and loop hole exploiting, and it’s only going up as the population goes up and wealth for the wealthy goes up.
Buying an item from a luxury brand can often not represent anything to do with luxury. Not until someone sees it, overpriced, in a glass case, in a clean store, with a polished sales assistant smiling at them.
Time to undo all of that smoke and mirrors and create more equality. Lab grown gemstones could help with this.
I wonder at what level it will bottom out. A year ago, a comparable lab grown to mined diamond seemed to be 50% cheaper in my search (YMMV)... it's hard for me to imagine it would get even lower than that! But I stopped paying attention this year.
